


Living with Rocket

by Woozletania



Series: Sanctuary [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Being Rocket Is Suffering, Cyborgs, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Surgery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11355066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woozletania/pseuds/Woozletania
Summary: Rocket turns out to be a high maintenance friend once you spend more time with him. The Guardians help him deal with various very real issues as one by one they become evident.NOTE!  Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 occur before Sanctuary. Part 5 and 6 (and most likely any subsequent chapters) are after Sanctuary. Chapter one is pre-GOTG2, all other chapters take place after GOTG2.





	1. Part 1 - PTSD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rocket moves in with the Guardians and Peter quickly realizes the little raccoon isn't sleeping well, and why.

Rocket was a tough little guy. Rough, tough, foul-mouthed, often angry and almost always heavily armed. You might not like him, but you had to respect him. Peter Quill had learned soon after meeting him how commanding the little raccoon could be. The prisoners at the Kyln had no trouble taking orders from a furry, three foot tall, forty-pound creature. Stature wasn't everything; confidence and a willingness to use force counted for a lot. Rocket had both of those in spades.  
  
You'd never know how hurt and vulnerable he really was under all that bluster. Not until you lived with him.  
  
The first clue was where and how he slept. The Milano, designed as a multi-person fighter and transport, had four “public” bunks (often used as sofas for get-togethers) and a few closet-sized rooms that were used as bedrooms by those desiring a bit more privacy. Each contained little more than a bed with pull-out drawers under it, with the exception of the captain's room, which had a larger, more comfortable bed and a private bath instead of the communal one. The one lack was that only the captain's room had a door. It was a functional enough arrangement as long as you didn't mind the Ravager communal lifestyle and as the Guardians grew accustomed to living on board each took a room and used it as you'd expect someone to use a bedroom.  
  
Except Rocket. The first time Peter went looking for him he found the raccoon had yanked all the drawers from under the bed and left them lying around the room to free up a dark little cave of a space, where he lay curled up surrounded by guns and little Groot's pot. It was a messy arrangement, as though Rocket had just ripped the drawers out in a frenzy and left them where they fell, but the raccoon was often untidy. Peter had just smiled and went on with his day, not realizing at first what he was seeing.  
  
Two days later he had to ask Rocket to put his room back together. The raccoon had dismantled part of the wall in the space under his bed and retreated further into the dark with Groot. It was a claustrophobic little burrow but though if anyone could safely do that to the ship it was Rocket the raccoon agreed, after a brief argument, to put everything back where he'd found it. He could sleep on the pillow or blankets he dragged under the bed, Peter told him, but please don't make a nest in the vents again. It blocked the air flow and sometimes you could smell raccoon musk throughout the ship.  
  
Instead Rocket installed a door to his room. How he did that Peter wasn't sure, but within two hours of their argument there was suddenly a sliding door between the raccoon's room and the hall. When Gamora and Drax expressed their admiration at that bit of engineering the raccoon grumbled good-naturedly and built doors for their rooms too. His strong little hands and innate mechanical skills were a marvel to behold but by then hardly a surprise, given what they'd seen up to this point. All seemed well with their odd little friend. It wasn't.  
  
The first real indication they had that things weren't as rosy as they seemed was an incoherent shriek of terror that brought everyone out of their bunks with weapons in hand. The whole crew burst into Rocket's room, finding him backed as far as he could go under the bed with Groot, the whites of his eyes showing around the feral irises and a huge gun in his hands. It took Peter five minutes just to get Rocket to put the gun down and longer than that to get him to come out of his cave. Peter told the others he had it covered and sat down to talk.  
  
"What's the matter, Rocket?"  
  
"Whaddya mean? Nothing's the matter." But the furry little hand that pulled Groot's pot close to his hip was shaking. He'd been sleeping in just his pants, not the armored vest he wore, and Peter noticed once more the polished metal bolts protruding from the raccoon's collarbones. You couldn't see the scars under the fur but he was sure they were there. He'd only seen Rocket's back once but knew that it was far, far worse. Who knew what other horrors lurked under Rocket's fur?  
  
Peter reached out to comfort Rocket and the raccoon actually _flinched_ when fingers brushed fur. He didn't snarl, or snap, or complain the way he usually did when someone tried to touch him. He wasn't angry this time. He was _terrified._  
  
Peter didn't know how to deal with that and tried another tack. "Were you in pain? Problem with your cybernetics?"  
  
The raccoon let out a harsh, desperate little laugh. "No. No problem. I just woke up wrong, OK?"  
  
"Okay pal. It's your business." Eventually Rocket calmed back down and crawled back into his cave to sleep but the seed of worry was planted and Peter insisted that Rocket not lock his door or, and this took a lot of arguing to get across, set any traps to keep people out. He hadn't missed the way the original random arrangement of drawers had evolved into a little fort around Rocket's nest and half expected an explosion whenever he moved between two of them. Eventually he had to point out that they might get a hull breach and have to get into any room to repair the ship. Even the captain's room wasn't locked, he pointed out.  
  
A week later Rocket woke up screaming again and this time only Peter came running, but only because he waved Gamora and Drax away. Like last time he had to talk Rocket out of the fortified hole under his bed where he sat shaking, clutching Groot tightly and denying that anything was wrong. Quill looked at the hand holding the pot and saw the unnatural knobbyness of Rocket's knuckles. There were bolts there under the fur, he was sure. And in how many other places?  
  
"I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over," he remembered Rocket saying. He hadn't really thought about it before. How long had that hell been? What had they done to that poor little animal that eventually became Rocket?  
  
During the day Rocket was tough and capable, easily angered but so useful to have around that no one gave it a second thought. He looked funny but he was part of the team and was completely indispensable as a mechanic and weapons expert. He almost singlehandedly kept the Milano running and he was an ace pilot, too. No one doubted the prickly little raccoon's competence but at night the raccoon was alone, except for Groot, and that's when the terrors came.  
  
Rocket spent all the next day working on something he called "aerorigs". He hadn't been impressed by Star-Lord's jet boots other than to comment that he'd once used something called "rocket skates", and his clever little hands were soon at work making them all jet packs. Like Quill's mask they used mass displacement technology to hide most of their bulk and were half the size of Peter's Walkman when not activated. They would allow you to fly for up to two hours when he was finished, the raccoon said, though you could run out the fuel supply a lot faster if you overloaded them.  
  
He was rough and tough and snarky but Peter was beginning to worry and that night he silently slid the door to Rocket's room open and peeked in. For a change the raccoon was curled up on the bed and Peter could see him shivering as he slept. His little furry hands twitched and he whined in his sleep as he tried to push some invisible tormentor away.  
  
Groot was there, still in his pot though as of that morning he showed the ability to leave it for a short time, and Peter saw how the little tree was stroking Rocket's fur as he slept. Wide innocent eyes turned to Peter and Groot gestured for him to approach.  
  
Quill grimaced as he stepped closer, seeing the inflamed flesh around the shoddily installed cybernetics on the raccoon's back. How much must that hurt? Rocket didn't like doctors, he knew. He didn't like to be touched in general and he didn't trust anyone who might jab him with a needle. His back needed care but he covered up his pain just as he covered his scars up with his tunic.  
  
Groot nodded as Peter reached out and put his hand on the nape of Rocket's neck. He felt the awful tension in the sleeping raccoon and the shivers that ran through his body as the nightmare gripped him. Quill did what Rocket would never let him do when awake. He petted Rocket until the shivering raccoon finally relaxed and calmed down. A little human kindness did what no amount of bravery and bluster could do: it banished the terror, at least for a little while.  
  
The nightmare seemed to come to Rocket at about the same time every night and soon Quill grew used to silently sliding the door open and creeping in on slippered feet to soothe the traumatized raccoon's sleep. Groot's eyes brightened each time he appeared and though the little tree could once more talk, albeit in a way only Rocket could understand, he must never have told the raccoon about Quill's nocturnal visits. One time Quill fell asleep before stopping by and woke to find little Groot tugging on his pants leg and pointing silently at the door. He was as worried about his friend as Peter was.  
  
It helped. Quill hadn't noticed Rocket's bloodshot eyes until the whites cleared, and the little tremor that sometimes ran through his hands even during the day soon subsided. Gamora caught Peter in the hall a few nights later but a lifetime of training as an assassin had taught her to keep her mouth shut. She glanced in only long enough to see him petting the shivering raccoon before shaking her head and returning to her room. It cost Quill a bit of sleep but it was worth it and Rocket didn't know what was going on as he slept.  
  
Until a few nights later. Peter found a tube of universal antibiotic in the ship's medical store and brought it with him during his nocturnal visit. Groot looked on approvingly as he calmed Rocket by gently petting him as he slept, then Peter applied some of the antibiotic to his fingers and went to rub it on the worst parts of the raccoon's back.  
  
He should have waited for the cream to warm up. The second his chilly fingers touched the bare skin of Rocket's back the raccoon growled like an angry cat and rolled over. Before Peter could yank his hand away cybernetically augmented hands grabbed his arm and sharp fangs sank into his hand.  
  
The breath hissed out of Peter as bones ground together between the raccoon's teeth. Either raccoons bit a lot harder than he thought they should or even Rocket's jaws were augmented. Blood dripped down his fingers onto the bedclothes and only a hard upbringing with the Ravagers allowed him to stay calm. Instead of trying to pry Rocket's muzzle open he used his other hand to gently scratch behind the raccoon's ears.  
  
Rocket clung to his arm with unnatural strength, even in sleep attacking something that threatened him. In his nightmare he probably saw the doctors, or scientists, or whatever you called the fucking monsters who had turned him into the broken little thing he was now. Luckily the blankets blunted most of his sharp-clawed kicks and Peter's leather sleeve absorbed most of the rest. With little choice other than to try to pry Rocket off his arm Peter kept scratching him behind the ears and all too slowly the bite loosened until Rocket's beady eyes blinked open. They flicked back and forth as he took in what was happening and only when he was sure he wasn't under attack did he finally let go of Peter's arm.  
  
"Quill? What are you doing in here?" His ears went down as he saw the bloody state of Peter's hand. "Aw, man. Sorry about that. But what were you doing in my room?"  
  
Groot patted Rocket's furry shoulder and piped out "I am Groot," and Peter, for the first time, was pretty sure he knew what the little tree said. He was going to bet he knew, anyway.  
  
"Groot waved at me as I went by your room and pointed at your back," Peter said as he put pressure on his bleeding hand. Rocket's fangs had gone right through the thickest part of the meat. "I'm sorry, I should have waited until you were awake, but I thought if I put some antibiotic on it you'd sleep better."  
  
"Oh," Rocket said. "Uh, thanks." His muzzle sank and he looked at the walls, the floor, everywhere but at Peter. He was simply unable to bring himself to ask for help, however much he needed it. Peter was beginning to realize that the tough, prickly exterior was just a shell to keep people from realizing how hurt and lonely Rocket really was.  
  
Gamora glanced in from the doorway but Rocket was looking at Groot and didn't see her. Peter frantically gestured her away. The raccoon was never going to open up if he thought they were ganging up on him.  
  
Fortunately Peter had a pocket full of smart medical patches he'd brought in case Rocket's back was even worse than it looked and he was able to staunch the bleeding and kill most of the pain from the bite. If Rocket had bitten down any harder it'd take more than that to fix his hand but stab wounds through muscle were easy with Ravager medical tech.  
  
"Rocket, I'm sorry I didn't ask you first," Peter said, "But your back looks really bad. I'm here anyway, could I smear some of this stuff on before I go?"  
  
"But I bit your hand." The raccoon didn't apologize, but he didn't ask Peter to leave, either.  
  
"And I'm gonna pay you back, because I bet this stuff is going to hurt."  
  
That made Rocket grin cruelly, but Peter saw the gleam in his eye. Rocket really did like hurting people, but he was starting to appreciate having someone to trade barbs with. He was beginning to trust Peter. He hadn't even mentioned that he woke up to being scratched behind the ears. And his back really must have bothered him, because he turned away without another word and waited for Peter to apply the creme.  
  
He'd never put the cap back on the new-bloody tube and this time Peter waited until the stuff warmed up on his fingertips before applying it. It was the longest look he'd had at Rocket's back and the scars were horrifying. Some were inflamed and the flesh around the largest implant looked infected. It must be agonizing but Rocket never complained. The little raccoon just sat there stiffly as Peter applied the antibiotic. There were two spots so nasty looking Peter slapped smart patches on them and a third that probably didn't need one but got one anyway.  
  
"You have to take better care of yourself, man."  
  
Rocket shrugged. "Augmented immune system. It wasn't gonna kill me any time soon. Groot used to put stuff on it but he's too little now and I don't like doctors."  
  
"It has to hurt."  
  
The raccoon grinned as he looked over his shoulder at Peter. "Everything hurts, humie."  
  
_Everything hurts._ That was all Peter got out of Rocket, who curled up on his side so the covers wouldn't get medical gel on them. Except for one last comment: "And close the door when you leave."  
  
Gamora was waiting silently in the hall and Peter didn't say a word until they were all the way up in the cockpit. The Milano was parked next to a particularly pretty nebula, far from the nearest jump gate. There was no need of a pilot when they were just killing time until the next good assignment came down the hypernet.  
  
"His hearing is better than ours but all the ship noise should drown us out if he's still awake," Peter said.  
  
"He's broken," Gamora said without preamble. "I've seen this before in torture victims. Even when released they are weak." She'd been around Peter enough to know from his face that she shouldn't have said that and went on. "I mean, there's no telling how he will react if someone learns how to manipulate him. He's a liability."  
  
"So am I," Peter said. "So is Drax. So are you!" He pointed a finger at her chest. "None of us are perfect. You can be manipulated by bringing up Thanos or your sister, Drax is a berserker and I've got Ravagers who want me dead. I'm not going to give up on a friend just because he's been through hell. Have you given up on Nebula?"  
  
Gamora was silent and he went on. "You were turned into a cyborg to serve Thanos. You had parents and he killed them. Rocket didn't even have that. He was this poor little thing they turned into a weapon and cut open over and over until he was what they wanted him to be. Then he got loose and I like to think he killed every last one of them. He's never had a crumb of love or comfort his entire life and we're all the family he has."  
  
Peter rubbed his bandaged hand. "We've all lost family. Rocket's had it worse than any of us. I know he's little, and he's mean and he plays jokes that get us in trouble. He made me go get that guy's leg right in the middle of our escape from the Kyln! But he's my friend. I'm not giving up on him and if nothing else you oughta appreciate how useful he is to have around. He got us out of the Kyln and made the weapon that helped kill Ronan."  
  
Finally Gamora nodded. "I admit...he is useful. I've never seen someone as good with technology. Even if he couldn't fight he'd be worth having on board. And I guess he isn't any more immature than you are."  
  
"Thank you," Peter said. "Sorta."  
  
Drax had appeared silently at the stairs and stood listening, only to nod wordlessly and head back to his bed. There was a kindness and consideration in his giant frame you wouldn't suspect if you hadn't seen him gently petting Rocket when Groot died. He must already have suspected what was going on and shown up just long enough to confirm it before signaling his agreement. They would put up with their friend's issues because that's what friends did.  
  
So things continued as they'd been, with Rocket sleeping better, Peter spending a few minutes a night petting him or putting antibiotic cream on his back, and the rest of the crew pretending they didn't know what was going on. And if Rocket was sometimes awake when Quill showed up he kept his mouth shut too.  
  
He'd never admit he let someone pet him, it smacked of being treated as an animal. But he'd lie there pretending to be asleep, accept that crumb of human comfort, and then the next day he'd go to work on the ship or some weapon or the aerorigs or whatnot. And if he was a little happier, and smiled a little more often even when he wasn't being snarky or hurting someone, that was all Peter needed out of the deal.


	2. Part 2 - Panic attacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite gradual improvement after joining the Guardians, Rocket's horrific past still bears down on him. Eventually something has to break, and unfortunately it's Rocket.

Ego had been hard on everyone. Peter Quill had lost his father - arguably both his fathers, though if you asked him now Yondu was the only one he acknowledged. Gamora had gone through a torturous reunion with her sister Nebula, Drax had been reminded once again of what he'd lost to Ronan, and their newest member, Mantis, had lost the only home and the closest thing to a father she'd ever known. Even Groot had been tormented by the Ravagers and nearly crushed by Ego.

And Rocket? Rocket had, very briefly, met someone who understood him. It had never happened before; leaving aside Groot, occasional mercenary team-ups had always been the closest he came to true friendship. He'd joined the Guardians, yes, but even they didn't truly know him. Leaving Yondu behind and ordering the ship into orbit without his new friend or Peter almost destroyed him. He knew one or both of them would die when he did it but someone had to give the order. Someone had to save as many people as possible. Only the appearance of a Ravager fleet to honor their lost comrade pulled him out of a deep despair.

When they returned to the sad wreck of the Milano he threw himself into repairing the ship, sleeping only fitfully before moving on to the next task. Work kept his mind and his hands busy; there no was time to dwell on what had been lost. His shipmates would find him asleep on the floor, exhausted from his labors, and step over the little body, careful not to disturb the prickly raccoon. If he was deeply asleep Peter would carefully pick him up and move him onto a folded blanket or pillow, or Drax or Gamora would gently nudge him out of the path of traffic. Mantis, still afraid to touch him, would find and tell the others where he lay so they could watch their feet. Asleep, without his sharp tongue wagging, Rocket suddenly seemed small and fragile. He never knew how much care his companions took not to step on him where he dozed.

His own tiny cabin had been completely blown away by the Sovereign attack, and rather to everyone's surprise the little raccoon proposed it not be rebuilt. The Milano, he said, needed a lifeboat, and over the course of the week and before Kraglin left to find a new crew he built one from components he liberated from the Ravager's much larger ship. The result was a vertical shaft through the Milano where the cabin used to be and a docked lifeboat large enough for the crew only if they were very friendly. It was still better than naked space.

The loss of one of their closet-sized crew cabins and the addition of Mantis to the crew presented them with a dilemma: where would everyone sleep? There were the “public” bunks in the thruway on either side of the engines and Drax promptly volunteered to take one so Mantis would have a room of her own. Rocket and Groot, needing only a small space, continued to curl up wherever they were working, often after the little tree dragged the raccoon a pillow or blanket to lie on.

With the major repairs done Rocket spent more time working on small projects in the common area. Maybe that was why he often chose to curl up at the end of one of the bunks there. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that if someone happened by they would most likely sit for a bit and pet the sleeping raccoon. Everyone knew not to touch him when he was awake unless they didn't mind risking a finger or two to his fangs. He couldn't abide being treated like an animal and he'd let you know that if you tried it. But if you found him sleeping the temptation to stroke his soft fur was all but irresistible. Sometimes he was deeply asleep, relaxed, but all too often they'd feel the tension in his little body as he remembered or imagined terrible things. They would pet him, hear him whine and claw the bunk, and not stop until he settled down to a better sleep. 

If he didn't know about it then being petted was no insult. That was probably how he rationalized it, anyway. He couldn't admit that the only reason he hadn't woken up screaming for months was that Peter stopped by almost every night to pet him as he shivered through another nightmare. Sometimes he woke when someone stopped to pet him but lay there pretending to be asleep, and he'd deny even to himself that those moments of human kindness were the brightest spots in his day.

He was a broken little thing under all the bluster and Rocket didn't know, or chose not to know, that his internal problems were no secret. Even Mantis knew within a day of arriving on the ship how hurt he was and that being petted had something to do with keeping him reasonably functional.

Before, when it was only Groot, he built a hard shell around his pain and fear that kept the terrors at bay. Then Groot, whose endlessly loyal companionship kept him going, died and the new version of his friend needed care and attention, on top of him suddenly being close to people he genuinely cared about. The loss of that support and softening of his heart brought the old nightmares back again. He'd lie there shivering, dreaming, remembering the scalpels and the dispassionate voices of the scientists as they ripped off an arm or leg, or split his torso open, crammed him full of cybernetics and stitched him back together again. They didn't dare risk anesthesia, he remembered them saying. Too many subjects died under the knife when the dosage was a trifle wrong. Test subjects were expensive and nerve deadening techniques, however unreliable, were cheap. That the Uplift process meant they were cutting open a conscious, thinking creature didn't matter. Profit was everything. 

It was the memory of cold blades slicing into his flesh and the scent of fear and death from the other cages that woke him screaming. But that hadn't happened for months now and sleeping curled up in a careful chosen public place wasn't asking to be petted. If it happened and he didn't wake up and bite you that was good fortune for everyone concerned.

So instead of Peter stumbling from his cabin around midnight to soothe the shivering raccoon it might be anyone at any time of the day, depending on his work schedule,whenever and wherever he happened to be sleeping. 

Slowly he healed. Slowly, over the weeks, the nightmares came less often as the hole inside him finally began to fill with friendship. Sleeping in the open was a good deal for everyone; they got to pet him, which even Gamora liked to do through she'd deny it, and he got to pretend it wasn't happening.

There was still a core of fear and misery in his furry little chest, though, and naturally it was Mantis who exposed it.

One evening a few weeks after Ego the ship was repaired and Rocket was sound asleep on the end of the bunk after a long day of crafting extra space suits and Aerorigs. Since he snapped at Mantis at their first encounter she was the least likely to stop and pet him as he slept, but she'd seen others doing it. This time she sat next to him, put her hand on his furry shoulder and frowned.

Mantis was alien, new to the crew and a powerful empath. Her entire function as Ego's servant had been to soothe her master's troubled mind and though Rocket was a quarter the mass of Ego's human form and an Uplifted animal, she felt the awful tension in his little body. A nightmare gripped him as he slept and Mantis, accustomed to reading emotions to see what caused such terrors, made the mistake of reading his.

There was no one there to see the horror that twisted her face or the tears that sprang into her eyes. This time it wasn't Rocket's scream that brought the crew running. It was Mantis's despairing shriek as she bolted from the room.

Every hair on Rocket's body stood out straight as he woke, rolling off the sofa onto all fours. Before he was even fully awake a clawed hand was under the sofa and around the grip of the plasma gun he always stowed within each reach when he slept. He came up onto his feet only to free his hands, one on the trigger and one ready to flip the setting from 'More or less all right to fire inside the ship' to 'I can fix the hole in the hull I'm about to make after you are dead.'

He skidded into the doorway with Groot clinging to his tail and the blaster ready only to find the whole crew gathered around the dinner table. There was no sign of danger, just Quill, Drax and Gamora all huddled around a sobbing Mantis.

"I told you not to-" Peter was right in the middle of saying to her. Rocket scanned the room for threats, and scowled as he realized there weren't any.

"Eh, it's just the empath crying again," he grumbled, and turned back into the corridor.

What happened next would never have occurred before he met the Guardians. If anyone but one of them had run up on him from behind the best case scenario for them would be that he had nonlethal ordinance in his weapons. If it had been a group of strangers he would have spun at the first footfall and lit them up.

But he trusted the Guardians, even trusted Mantis as much as he trusted anyone he'd known only a few days. A furry ear flipped around as he heard the slap of a bare foot but he was uncharacteristically slow to react and suddenly soft hands were around his chest and his feet left the deck. Groot lost his grip on his ringed tail and Rocket went rigid as he realized it was Mantis who had grabbed him. It was just a hug but to Rocket any unexpected contact was a threat, especially if it was someone bigger than he was. And everyone was bigger than Rocket.

"Get off!" He snarled, cybernetically augmented hands trying to pry hers from his chest. She was stronger than she looked and he'd dropped the blaster. He kicked at her knee, increasingly agitated despite her efforts to soothe him.

"You poor little thing," she said into his ear. "What did they do to you?"

Rocket didn't like being picked up or pushed around. Anyone else would have bite marks by now but even in this safe environment his struggles intensified. The last time someone had picked him up like this he'd been wearing a muzzle and -

"No," he snarled, his tail fluffing out in terror. First they picked him up, then came the restraints, the scalpels, the pain. "No, no, NO! Let go!" His ears went back and he wasn't wearing a muzzle this time. He twisted in Mantis's grip and Peter was there. A strong hand gripped his shoulder and for the second time his fangs went into Peter's flesh, the human's forearm receiving the bite intended for Mantis's throat.

Then Drax was there too, his huge hand on Rocket's other shoulder, and Gamora, hers on his nape not quite petting him, and even Groot was clinging to his tail again, and Rocket realized they weren't restraining him. Their grip just held him close, but he could wriggle free if he wanted. Even Mantis, sensing his terror, loosened her hug.

"It's all right Rocket," Peter said, even as blood dripped down his arm, "It's all right."

It started with a shudder, a twitch in his belly, and before Rocket knew what was happening he was crying, ugly wracking sobs shaking his little body. Drax took him away from Mantis and they all stood close as the only one of them who ever raised a child held Rocket tight and murmured comforting words. Hands that for once weren't there to hurt him, cut him open, or break him stroked his fur and Rocket sobbed, his shell finally cracked. The last time someone held him like this was so far in the past all he remembered was warm fur and safety.

After a time he cried himself into exhaustion and found the little band all sitting on the bunk he most often curled up on. His eyes cleared and he saw Gamora tending to Mantis's forearms, deeply scratched, and Quill sticking smart bandages on the holes his fangs had made.

"How did that happen," Rocket wondered, and stirred in Drax's grip enough for the giant to let him slide from his arms and sit on the bunk. "Mantis?"

"I did nothing," the empath said in her strange accent. "I could feel it needed to come out, but forcing it would not help. It had to come out on its own."

"This isn't right," Rocket said, and though he felt somehow lighter his ears were down and his gaze downcast. "I can't be this weak."

"It is not weakness!" Drax said sharply. "Keeping it all inside, forever, that is weakness. Sooner or later you must let yourself feel." He paused, gathering his thoughts. “If you don't let yourself feel, care for others, if you isolate yourself forever in your rage...It almost happened to me, Rocket. 'Everyone has dead people.' If you hadn't told me what a mistake I'd made, I would be the next Ronan.”

"And if it weren't for all of you, I'd be with Ego now," Peter muttered. “Forever.” Mantis nodded.

"I would be with Thanos," Gamora said. “Or dead.”

Suddenly Peter's hand was on Rocket's nape and the raccoon's chops drew back to expose his fangs. Only the blood already on Quill's wrist made him hesitate. In that frozen instant Peter began to scratch him gently behind the ears.

"Rocket," the man said softy, "It's us. Not strangers, not enemies. Not people who want to hurt you and sure as hell not the ones that make you wake up screaming. It's us."

"No," Rocket growled. "Don't do that. I'm not an animal."

"Of course you aren't," Mantis said. "You're Rocket. But you still like to be petted."

"I don't -"

"Rocket," Peter said gently. "Before Ego I came to your room for weeks to pet you because if I didn't you'd have a nightmare and wake up screaming. Then you bit me and I still kept coming, right? And now you've slept out here a hundred times and everyone's sat down to pet you. It's a small ship. You can't pretend you are asleep that many times without everyone knowing."

Rocket sighed. Somehow, despite it all, he was calm. All the fear had bled out of him with the tears.

"All right," he said. "All right. I like to be petted. It feels good, it makes me feel...I don't know. Safe. And yes, sometimes at night I, I remember things. Things I don't want to remember. Having Groot around helps but he's so little still. He has to sleep too."

“Rocket,” Drax said in that deep voice. “We talked to Kraglin before he left. The second, the very _second_ you were free you came to get us. You put yourself at risk without a second thought to protect us. We would do the same for you. You are not alone. You have your family all around you."

Rocket's hands found a smart pad on the table and absently disassembled it and rebuilt it by touch. Working with his hands relaxed him more than almost anything. "Family," he said. "I could learn to like that word."

His hard shell had finally cracked and though in public he was as snarky and sarcastic as ever, and just as likely to sink his teeth into you if you tried to pet him, on the Milano it was different. Here he could admit that he enjoyed simple pleasures like having his ears scratched. And the nightmares, though they would never full fade, at least weren't as frequent or as terrifying. It was possible to move on, even from a past as awful as his.

It was shortly after that Peter took a solo trip to Earth to collect new music and brought back what he said was a 'Travel bed for anthropomorphs, size 4'. It was an odd round little thing with a raised lip embroidered with the Ravager symbol and Rocket's name, well padded and large enough for him to curl up in. Instead of sleeping on a pillow or bunched up blanket the raccoon would often be found under a workbench or in the common areas snoozing away in the thing. It was safe to pet him now, too. Safer, anyway.

But he was still Rocket, and one day in the common area Peter sat down on the bunk next to the bed to idly scratch behind the seemingly sound asleep raccoon's ears. He went wide-eyed when a small but cybernetically augmented hand clamped down on his fingers.

"Just so you know," Rocket said without opening his eyes, "I know where you got this bed. I know what it's for. And if I'd caught you laughing at me behind my back for sleeping in it you would have woken up without your dick. But you didn't, and it's comfortable. So thank you."

With that he stretched, curled up in the pet bed with Groot and went back to sleep, and Peter just rubbed his fingers and smiled at his violent little friend.


	3. Part 3 - Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drax of all people leads an intervention to force Rocket to have something done about the botched cybernetic implants on his back, and the crew meets someone from the raccoon's dark past.

It wasn't Peter, for a change, that convinced Rocket to do something the little raccoon didn't want to do. It was Drax and, to everyone's surprise (maybe even hers), Gamora.

They were collecting a bounty on a particularly violent group of renegade Kree when it started. As usual Drax waded into melee with Gamora while Peter and Rocket picked off targets from a distance. The Kree well well equipped but disorganized, typical of badly led militias, and by the time the two sides closed most of them were dead thanks to Rocket's remotely deployed mines and Gamora silently picking off stragglers. The last few Kree charged Drax and the Destroyer, being all but invulnerable, went after them with his knives. Rocket had taken to using the giant as cover, as he once had with Groot, and as the two sides closed he shot two of the three dead.

But the last one had a surprise in store and rather than shoot Drax he dropped his weapon and pressed a control on his wrist. Rocket knew all about traps and bombs and instantly dived behind some rubble, not quite fast enough to avoid the edge of the searing blast wave as the Kree exploded. Drax was thrown fifty feet and the man who'd shrugged off being embedded in a steel bulkhead by Ronan rose moments later, battered, bloodied, but to no one's surprise barely shaken. Rocket on the other hand climbed to his feet with parts of his fur on fire and his back smoldering, beating out the last sparks as the others approached to make sure he and Drax were all right.

Rocket's tail was a sad shadow of its usual fluffy self, little more than a fleshy whip covered in burnt fur, but he came out of it more or less unscathed save for a nick in one ear, some minor cuts and an armored backplate reduced to smoking ruin. He waved away the suggestion that he needed first aid and darted from Kree body to Kree body on all fours, scanning them for further traps and liberating various weapons, bits of tech and other valuables. His damaged armor kept catching on things and so engrossed was he in his work that he stripped it off and cast it aside. 

It was the first time Drax and Gamora had seen him naked from the waist up, as he normally wore a light ship-vest even when sleeping, and Drax's eyes went wide at the sight of his back. The heat had penetrated the raccoon's armor and scorched away some of what little fur he had there, but the few small burns and blisters were nothing compared to the horrific scars and protruding cybernetic implants. 

"Rocket, your back," Drax said, and Gamora just shook her head. Rocket's back was better than it had been a few months before, with less signs of infection and fewer areas of reddened, inflamed flesh, but it was still an ugly sight.

"What?" The raccoon looked up, his hands still disassembling a Kree energy rifle. "Oh yeah, right. Didn't mean to make you look at that." He glanced around, so engrossed in his task he'd forgotten for a moment where he left his armor, only to find Drax holding it inside-out so that everyone could see the blood and fluids staining the padding where it had stuck to Rocket's back. Some of the stains were new and some months-old, dating back to him getting the new outfit after Xandar.

Gamora knew cybernetics well, being the second most augmented Guardian. Her implants were top-end and barely showed, though. "Rocket, that looks bad. You have to get someone to look at it."

Rocket turned to face them in by a now all too familiar defensive reaction, covering up his injuries and denying everything. "It's fine. Been that way forever."

"It's not that bad, guys. I've been putting antibiotics on it a few times a week." Peter was to instantly regret taking Rocket's side. 

"You knew about this?!" Gamora snapped at him. "Why didn't you say something? I've seen neater work on homemade Ravager cybernetics!"

"Hey! If I could get at it I'd fix it myself," Rocket growled. "And it's my business." He yanked a bloody and far too large shirt off a Kree Drax had eviscerated and draped it over himself. "There. Problem solved."

It wasn't, of course, and Drax was the one who wouldn't let it drop. Since Rocket's emotional breakdown a few months back the giant had come to regard the little raccoon almost as his own child. Between Mantis's empathic therapy and the strong support of his friends Rocket had healed a great deal in a short time, but occasionally the night terrors still came on him and he'd taken to leaving his little padded bed by the end of Drax's bunk and synchronizing his sleep to that of the giant. When Drax, once a parent and easily woken by small sounds, heard the raccoon whine in his sleep or claw at his bed a great hand would come down off the bunk and stroke Rocket's fur until he relaxed.

Everyone had petted a sleeping Rocket (and lately, when he was awake too) and suddenly there was a sinister significance to how he always turned when petted, even when asleep, so a hand did not stray onto his upper back. It either hurt to be touched there or, just as bad, he didn't want them to feel how mangled he was.

And so later, when Rocket was sitting stiffly on a bunk so Peter could treat the burns and apply universal antibiotics to his back, Drax and Gamora appeared in the doorway to the little cabin.

"Rocket," Drax said firmly, "You need to let someone look at that. Gamora says there's a cover missing off one of those bolts. It's not healthy to leave it that way."

Rocket's ears went back as they always did when he was confronted about something he didn't want to talk about. Six months before he'd have laughed it off or told Drax where to stick it. Six months ago he hadn't had a family, though, and Drax and Peter were the closest things to father figures he'd ever had. Just the same, he balked.

"It's fine," he mumbled. His furry little hands found the medical kit Peter had brought and unconsciously began to sort the contents. "Don't like doctors."

"If it stays that way, sooner or later that bolt is going to pull back into your skin and get stuck," Gamora said. It was only around the scars that you truly got to see how extensively Rocket was modified. Besides the bolts and apparatus protruding from his skin there was a visible bulge where some sort of cross brace changed the whole shape of his chest. Between that and the bolts atop what were probably artificial collarbones the marks where they had turned a four-legged animal into a biped were all too evident. That left out whatever other scars hid under his fur. Even his hands had bolts and screws that sometimes showed.

"Happens," Rocket mumbled. He had sorted the contents of the kit by size and was absently taking a pair of surgical scissors apart. "I just flex my arm until it pops back out."

"Man, that has to hurt," Peter said. "You gotta stop that from happening."

Rocket's ears went down and his fangs came out as he dropped the scissors. "I told ya," he snarled. "Everything hurts! I've got it covered, okay? I don't like doctors. Don't like needles. I can live with it."

Peter shook his head and stuck a smart bandage on one of the stubborn areas around the big implant on Rocket's back that never seemed to heal. The raccoon's body was still trying to reject some part of the cybernetics and at the same time Rocket's enhanced immune system kept trying to heal it. The raccoon's pain tolerance was incredible yet he still winced sometimes when Peter worked on his back but what could you do? It was his body.

You could be as stubborn as he was. "No," said Drax, the voice rumbling up out of his barrel chest. "You won't 'live with it.' We're going to find a doctor, a cyberneticist, and we're going to have him look at it. And if he does the tiniest thing that worries me, I will break every bone in his body."

"And if he somehow gets away," Gamora said, "Then he will have to deal with me."

The already tense raccoon went rigid on the bunk and Peter put his hand on Rocket's shoulder from behind. "I'll be there too, buddy. You won't be alone."

Rocket looked down at little Groot, who had sensed the tension and was rubbing the raccoon's nearly furless tail. The stiffness slowly went out of his body.

"All right," he said softly. "Just as long as you're there." It was an admission of frailty they'd never heard before from the raccoon. He didn't want to be alone. Not any more.

Naturally Rocket immediately and conveniently forgot about the agreement but a day layer he found Drax clumsily typing in searches for cyberneticists with his thick fingers. With a long-suffering sigh Rocket elbowed him out of the way.

"No," he said at once. "Not on that planet. Or that one. No, not that guy. Only works on things with tentacles. No, not him..." 

"Sounds like you've done some research yourself," Peter said over his shoulder.

"Shut up." Rocket flipped through a dozen more doctors, then began typing in searches so fast they could hardly make out the words on the floating screen. It was no surprise he was as good with computers as any other technology. It was only when dealing with people that he stumbled.

Five minutes later he found something he liked. The face of a blond human or human-like alien hovered on the screen as Rocket did increasingly elaborate searches about him. Finally the rapid-fire clatter of claws on keys stopped and the little raccoon took a deep breath.

"Okay," he said, and pointed a claw at the screen. "Him."

"Foster, Paul," Peter read. "That's an Earth name!"

"You aren't the only one from that rock out here," Rocket said. "Buncha races have been there, taking specimens, people. Slaves, whatever. This guy was one of a dozen or so got picked up and used as researchers. Some of them were forced, some did it 'cos it paid well. They couldn't go back to Earth, there's a treaty. You can take from low tech worlds but you can't bring back, right? That's why you had to do all that paperwork just to go back there for music. Watchers brokered that treaty, long time ago."

"Watchers," Drax said. " _The_ Watchers?"

"Yeah, them," Rocket said. "They gave some planet tech a few billion years back and the guys they gave it to promptly blew themselves up. That's why they are Watchers now. 'Bout all they do is watch and act as mediators these days."

He typed briefly, waited. "Okay. Got an appointment tomorrow at his office on Gumwalt, southern continent, Spire City. It's only ten jumps, so we can head there after we get some sleep."

"That was quick," Peter said, but Rocket didn't reply. He just made his way to his little round bed to curl up, and if Drax noticed how many times he had to pet the sleeping raccoon to calm him down that night, he said nothing.

Most of a day, a few jumps and a maglev train ride later the Guardians, minus Mantis and Groot, sat impatiently waiting for the doctor to arrive. The mismatched foursome were the only ones in the office aside from a pink-skinned Xandarian nurse, or maybe she was just a receptionist. Rocket sat, ears down and his little hand on Drax's forearm, not reacting even when a voice came out of the intercom.

"Only one appointment this morning I see, Cleva," said the voice. "Animal Uplift with cybernetics problems?"

The receptionist nodded to thin air. "Yes doctor. I don't know the species, but he's mammalian."

"That's not a lot to go on," said the doctor conversationally as came through the door. The raccoon didn't look up but everyone else saw the blood drain from the man's face and heard his smart pad hit the floor as he saw Rocket. 

"No," he whispered, backing toward the door. Gamora was on her feet in an instant but Rocket's hand darted out to grab her wrist.

"I'm not here to hurt you," the little raccoon said, still not looking up. "You can go if you want, we won't stop you, but I really need your help."

Drax and Peter shared looks but Gamora split her attention between the doctor, who was deciding whether or not to run, and the receptionist, who had her hand out of sight on what must be a panic button. Eventually the doctor relaxed.

"It's all right, Cleva," he said. Color had begun to return to his face. "We're old friends. Go prep examining room one, please. And clear my schedule for the rest of the day."

A moment later the doctor sat himself on a nearby chair and studied Rocket with a mixture of wonder and barely repressed fear. "You talk better now," he said.

Rocket let out a harsh little laugh. "Kinda necessary, doc."

"I heard you were working with a, well, a tree," the doctor said, looking at the Guardians one after another. "And you had something to do with stopping Ronan, along with these 'Guardians'. And in stopping whatever that was that happened a few months back. That biological attack all over the galaxy. Seems like you made a name for yourself."

The doctor fiddled with his recovered smart pad, looking uncomfortable. "You're so much more than I thought you'd ever be."

"So much more than what you started with?" Rocket looked up at last, and Peter was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

"89P13, " said the man, and then paused. "Rocket. You know I didn't agree with what we did. Uplift, yes, I can live with doing that. But the rest...." he fiddled with the pad, and Peter could see scans of Rocket flicking by, skeletal structures, cybernetics. Some of the images showed the little raccoon, partially shaved, restrained, cut open. One showed a plastic gag in his mouth and his wide-open eyes as someone, visible only as hands, worked on an arm - probably more of a foreleg at that point - that had been physically ripped from his body. Only a few tendons still connected arm and torso and someone else was trying to staunch the bleeding from the stump. "I tried to get them to not do it that way."

Rocket's emotional moment had passed quickly. "That's why you are still alive, Doc." He said it matter-of-factly, and Foster could only nod.

"The examining room is ready, doctor," said the nurse, and the little group rose and went in, Rocket shuffling awkwardly along with Drax's hand on one shoulder and Peter's on the other. They were just there for support, not to push him onward, and a little furry hand came up to rest on each of theirs as they stepped into a room packed full of examining tables, autodocs and full-body scanners. Doctor Foster gestured for Rocket to undress and Drax spoke up.

"Doctor," he said. "Before we start. You had something to do with all this," he gestured at the scars exposed as Rocket shucked out of his tunic. "I think he trusts you. But if you hurt our friend -" 

"It's all right, Drax," Rocket mumbled. "It was a long time ago. It's all over now."

The breath hissed out of the doctor as he saw Rocket's back. "Oh god. They were supposed to graft over that. But then..." he shook his head. "Step into the scanner, please."

It was a long and painful visit for everyone, not so much physically, for the doctor used a nerve deadener on each part of Rocket he worked on, but simply because it was discomfiting to watch the little raccoon sit there, quite conscious, and let himself be cut open. He refused anesthesia even when Doctor Foster and the nurse flayed open his chest to repair a damaged cross-brace on his ribs. He could see it all happening and he lay there eerily calm save for the grip he kept on Peter and Drax's hands. 

At least, he seemed calm until you saw his heart rate spike on the monitor every time the doctor approached and felt how his grip tightened. Or saw how many times the nurse had to deaden nerves to relax the muscle-cracking tension in his limbs so they could make another cut. The nurse connected tubes and pumps to return to his body as fast as it leaked out and he lay there all but paralyzed, aware and refusing to close his eyes. This was the nightmare that woke him screaming and only the presence of his friends kept him from coming up off the operating table with a scalpel in his hand or collapsing into shrieking terror. 

"Man, you have to let them put you under, " Peter said an hour or so in, but Rocket just shook his head and clung all the more tightly to his hand. If they hadn't deactivated most of his cybernetics in the first few minutes Rocket's desperate grasp would have cracked the bones in Peter's hand. Every so often Drax would gently pet the raccoon's nape and he'd relax a little, at least until the doctor approached once more. 

Mantis had volunteered to come along and soothe his fears during the meeting but Rocket had turned that offer down too. He needed to be awake and in control for this, he'd said. “The next time I'm unconscious in an operating room will be the day they put me in a box. “

Somehow the doctor kept his own composure despite Gamora watching him like a hawk, ready to kill him in an instant if he did anything she questioned. In a room full of dangerous people all too ready to use lethal force to protect their friend he and the nurse worked quickly, professionally, and made no mistakes.

Bit by bit he went over the little raccoon's body, tweaking servos, replacing some, tightening connections. Only now did the Guardians learn how extensive Rocket's cybernetic systems were. Every limb, even his neck and jaws, practically every bone had an associated servo or brace, and the doctor knew where each was before he picked up a scalpel. Rocket had come to perhaps the one man in the galaxy who know how he ticked.

Later they would learn he'd kept all his old files on Rocket and updated them as technology improved, to be ready just in case Rocket came not to kill him but for help. Or perhaps as a bargaining chip if it was the former. It amounted to the same thing. 

Unlike Peter he was able to do more than smear antibiotic or stick smart bandages on Rocket's back and when he was done the bolts were smooth and polished, the skin around them still scarred but much healthier. He even had a device that regrew most of the fur around them, leaving just a half-inch ring of exposed skin around each implant. He used the same device to repair most of the fur he'd shaved off over the course of the day and the raccoon's threadbare tail. When it was finally over Rocket stepped out of the shower, the last traces of blood rinsed from his fur. He stood and stretched, twisting his arms, flexing his knees.

"Hadn't realized how screwed up I was," he said, and went through a series of small motions to to test his joints. "Thanks doc, that's a lot better."

"Before you ask," the doctor said, his voice thick with emotion, "This is all on the house. Not because you could hurt me. You could have done that years ago. Because I'm proud of you, Rocket. You're more than I ever thought you'd be, not because of us, but despite us. I'm so sorry it was like that. It should have been better, back then. Better for you, better for us."

Rocket nodded wordlessly as he turned away. 

"Rocket," the doctor said, and the raccoon paused. "Come back anytime. You're always welcome."

Rocket stood frozen, then turned to face the doctor. He took the man's hand in his little furry ones for a moment, then spoke. "I'm sorry about your friends. I wish... I wish it'd been different too." 

Rocket didn't say another word all the way back to the Milano, just occasionally flexing his fingers or bending a joint wonderingly. He'd never said a word about it, but it was obvious now he'd been in constant pain. Exhausted by the operation, he spent the last hour of the trip curled up in a ball between Peter and Drax. Fellow passengers in the car glanced in amusement at the sleeping "pet" and one approached with his hand outstretched but the frosty glare from all three of Rocket's companions and the way hands slid easily toward weapons at the merest hint of a threat to their friend chased him away long before he touched fur. 

When they reached the ship he went straight to his locker and brought back a pouch. At his gesture the whole crew gathered, there around the common room table. Groot sat on his knee and Mantis put her hand on his shoulder as he opened it.

First to come out was an animal collar, crudely cut through, bearing the legend 89P13. Then a bit of the old-style plastic news scrip still used on a few worlds.

HALFWORLD RESEARCH CENTER DESTROYED BY REACTOR EXPLOSION, read the headline. 'Sole survivor fled when alarm sounded, authorities baffled.'

There was more, but Rocket folded it and set it aside. Next out of the pouch was a ID badge on a lanyard, then another, another, three more. One had a bullet hole, others were stained with old blood. One was scored by cuts from some blade and so saturated with blood the plastic was permanently discolored. 

"Randolph", he said, and held up the badge. PROJECT DIRECTOR, it said below the name. "Ernst." That was the cut-up badge, blazoned CHIEF SURGEON. "Tschu." PROGRAMMER. "Osterman," CYBERNETICIST. "Chang," "Kinkaid," SURGEONS.

He shuffled the badges, then lay one atop another until only the first letter of each name showed. ROCKET.

"Could have got Foster too," he said so softly they strained to hear. "But he wasn't so bad. Told him to run. Then I blew the place. By then," he looked down at the badges. "I had all the letters I needed." His surprisingly expressive muzzled face twisted as he remembered, then slowly relaxed. "All this time, I was sorry I could only kill them once. That I couldn't make them suffer more. They were just things to hate. Now...if they were still out there, somewhere, I think I could live with that. As long as they weren't still doing what they did, I could leave them be." 

Drax put his huge hand on the raccoon's where it lay atop the badges. "Eventually you have to stop living for hate, and just live." Drax had learned hard lessons during his own monomaniacal pursuit of vengeance. 

Slowly, deliberately, Rocket gathered up the badges, the collar, the news scrip. There was a sense of formality to it as he let go of the long remembered pain, the hatred. "I don't need letters any more," he said. "Or a number." he slid the collar into the pouch with the rest. "I have a name." He paused. "And a family. That's all I need."

Peter put his hand on Rocket's shoulder and they watched, silent, as he dropped the pouch into the Milano's incinerator. And somehow, that night, despite the endless horror of that day's operation and for the first time anyone could remember, Rocket slept the whole night through without a single nightmare.


	4. Monsters gotta stick together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the people the furry little cyborg might bond with, you wouldn't expect one to be Nebula. But the two have more in common than meets the eye.

Things soon settled down to a routine on the Milano. After Ego, many bounties and assorted interpersonal dramas the crew were learning to live and work as a family. Mantis was proving surprisingly useful in many ways; Rocket was teaching her the rudiments of equipment repair, she was useful as a non-threatening negotiator (valuable in a crew full of thugs) and of course there wasn't a single crew member who didn't need therapy of some sort, even if that was sometimes just a sympathetic ear. 

Everyone was learning, in fact. Of them all only Star-Lord was what you'd call "reasonably well adjusted" and his impulse control needed a lot of work. Rocket had his little furry hand slapped enough times that he at least tried to control his maniacal impulse to take things apart and make them work better (or build bombs out of them), Drax was getting better at understanding admittedly basic social cues and even swiftly growing Groot, who took after his “father” Rocket in all sorts of unfortunate ways, was slowly turning from an angry little tree to something a bit more like formidable but gentle Old Groot.

So it took something out of the ordinary to throw a spanner into the works. Something like a visit from Nebula.

Gamora's sister still had the Ravager fighter Kraglin gave her from the Quadrant's hangar and after the contact request the two ships met at Challenger Station, little more than a floating fuel depot way out in Varnax sector. She showed up, exchanged an awkward hug with Gamora and then sat in the Milano's common area to negotiate trade. She needed repairs and Units and she had a shipload of supplies to trade. Best not to inquire too closely where she got the stuff, everyone agreed.

"Why didn't you just sell the stuff somewhere? Why come to us?"

Nebula shrugged at Star-Lord's question. "You know the answer to that."

"There are places even outlaws can go to trade," Gamora ventured.

"And this is one of them," snapped Nebula. "Now do you want these supplies or not?"

Rocket sat in the corner, teaching Groot how to use the Yo-Yo Quill had found in a junker store. In an hour of haggling he spoke up only once to say he'd pay for the crate of random spare parts Nebula was lugging out of his own pocket. Anything that kept his dangerously clever hands out of the Milano's guts met with Peter's approval and ultimately the raccoon paid for half and Star-Lord the other on the basis that most of what Rocket made benefited the crew in some way. Discounting the weaponized coffee maker that shot Drax through a bulkhead last week, anyway.

Though the raccoon seemed disinterested in the whole affair his furry ear twitched every time Nebula moved and no one missed it when he slid from the chair, handed mini-Groot off to Mantis and followed Nebula out of the room. Peter and Gamora shared a look but shrugged. It was none of their business and Mantis spoke up at that moment, asking Peter something about Nebula. Never the most focused individual Quill slipped easily into the conversation and didn't much note when Gamora left as well, followed by Drax.

It wasn't that Rocket tried to be stealthy. His guns-first manner made that impossible most of the time anyway. It was just that when you are less than three feet tall and maybe forty pounds soaking wet you don't make much noise walking. Nevertheless Nebula noticed.

"What do you want, fox," she said, just off the Milano's boarding ramp and halfway to her own ship. 

"Your cybernetics are fucked up," Rocket said with his usual tact. "I can hear 'em whining. Three blown servos in your left arm alone. And a joint grinding. More stuff elsewhere."

"So?". The cyborg shot the smaller, cuter (but equally angry) one a look. "Why should you care?"

"Because I can hear them," Rocket said. "Fucked up machinery bugs me and the whine is driving me crazy." A cup-shaped furry ear flicked as Nebula turned to face him. "Lemme have a look." His little clawed hands twitched as he repressed the urge to just run up and start working on the problem. Rocket's need to fix things bordered on the manic sometimes, a product of 'programming' he couldn't easily shake off.

"Don't you have a dog bed waiting for you somewhere, fox?"

"A what?" Rocket tilted his head to the side.

"I've seen that thing you sleep in."

If Nebula thought to enrage Rocket and get him to drop his interest in her cybernetics, she underestimated him. "I know what it is. I know where Quill got it too. But it's comfortable. I don't need a whole you-sized bed and space is tight on the Milano. I can drag that thing anywhere and sleep where I'm working."

Nebula was genuinely curious now. "It doesn't bother you to sleep in a pet bed?"

"Lady, I got lotsa problems. A comfy bed ain't one of them. Now let me look at that arm."

It was the longest conversation he'd ever had with Nebula and almost to his surprise she shrugged and sat down on the metal decking. "Fine."

He'd never been within arm's reach of her before and she was sure he'd never gotten a good look at her cybernetics but in five seconds he had her upper arm half disassembled. One furry hand dragged a pouch around that had previously hung above his tail and the handles of specialized tools popped out as he lifted the flap. Many of the tools looked homemade and some were definitely made expressly for working on cybernetics and bionics.

"You should have got this worked on by now," the raccoon grunted as he examined the guts of her arm. He sniffed and grimaced. "Got burnt connections all through here. No plasma burns on the outside though. How'd it happen?"

"When the Sovereign attacked on Ego I had to power the drilling lasers with my cybernetics."

"Oh yeah. Good job. Mine don't have the power to do that or I'd have tried it. You have high-power cybernetics, go through power cells like crazy, mine all run on chemical energy they get from my metabolism. Means I have to eat a lot and they're a lot weaker than yours but all I need is food and it all keeps working."

"You're strong enough," Nebula said, remembering how the little raccoon hefted weapons as large as himself.

Rocket grunted an affirmative and tossed a burst servo module into the corner. Somehow it didn't surprise Nebula that he had spares in another pouch. Over the course of ten minutes he painstakingly disassembled her arm and then rebuilt it. Externally it appeared unchanged but when his clawed fingers snapped the last panel shut and she swiveled her elbow there was a smoothness and a strength to the rotation she hadn't felt in months.

"Lemme see your leg. Left leg."

"Watch where you put your hands, fox."

Rocket grinned cruelly. "Why? Do you even still have..." he trailed off, looking away. "Sorry. Forget I said that. Just need to see the knee, I can hear a bearing grinding in there."

Nebula hadn't been around Rocket much but she knew he didn't say 'sorry' unless he meant it. "Why are you really doing this, fox?"

Rocket had her knee partly taken apart and his hands kept working even as he talked. They knew what to do with no input from his brain. "Because when I had to stun Gamora and order the ship off Ego, you were right there. You coulda stopped me. I had to get us off that rock. I didn't want to, but someone had to give the order. Had to save as many lives as I could."

"Even if it meant leaving some behind."

"Yeah. Try the knee." The difference wasn't as dramatic as the arm but her leg bent without a catch in the movement he hadn't even noticed until it was gone.

Nebula remembered the scene in the Quadrant's entry bay. Giving that takeoff order had crushed Rocket emotionally and she was amazed he'd recovered at all, much less so completely. It would have been simple to walk over and break his neck then and there but she needed to get off the exploding planet just like the rest of them. The fact that he'd stunned Gamora to protect her was part of it too, of course.

Rocket was...sniffing her? His whiskers twitched as he looked her over from uncomfortably close range, his little clawed fingers poking and prodding. The raccoon had no sense of personal space at all when he was working on something, and Nebula supposed she was his current project. He touched her in indelicate places but she bore it as she would bear a doctor's examination, which was what this was. A furry, less than three foot tall cyborg genius of a doctor, but a doctor nevertheless.

"Lotsa internal faults. Look, I can do the stuff on the outside, but I can't do flesh stuff. Someone's gonna need to cut you to get at some a this and I know a guy I trust."

“Not interested."

"Suit yerself. I didn't wanna get worked on either, but the crew leaned on me." Somewhat to her surprise Rocket didn't flinch away when her only partly cybernetic right hand slid up his back until it stroked the fur of his neck. That made it simple to grab a handful of scruff and yank him off the ground.

"Ow! Leggo, leggo!" Rocket's fangs came out and he clawed hard at her arm in the beginnings of what looked like a violent panic attack, but even that arm has half mechanical and he barely scratched her.

"How many bombs did you just put in me, fox? Why are you really doing this?"

In the entryway Gamora put up her hand as Drax reached for his knives. The last time anyone manhandled Rocket this way he'd panicked and bitten Peter but the raccoon was stronger now. She saw the flashed hand signal for 'wait' even as he squirmed and growled theatrically. Naturally their presence twenty feet away was no secret to his senses, even if Nebula missed it.

"All right!" Rocket yelped, hanging limp from his scruff now. "All right. I didn't put any bombs in ya. Word of honor. And I did it because I know what it's like!"

"Know what, fox?"

Rocket looked away. "To be someone's toy."

Nebula winced and dropped him. He landed easily on all fours, rolling back to sit cross-legged next to her. He rubbed his scruff for a moment, then spoke. "See, whoever did Gamora did top-notch work. I hardly have to help her with her cybernetics at all. Me, I'm a rush job. They didn't care if everything hurt all the time. I'm just a project. Someone's little monster. Sound familiar?"

"Yes." Nebula leaned back against the bulkhead. "So you could tell."

"You got it. I could hear ya wince, smell the bad connections and where the flesh is trying ta heal same time it tries to reject the implants. I know how much that hurts. You're even worse off than I was, lady. I can do a little, but you need to see a doc."

They were silent for a moment and Rocket idly traced circuit diagrams on the dusty floor. "I know what it's like to be a thing. Not a person. Just a thing someone makes. They don't care who you are, what you want. Just how they can use you. And then when they're done," he drew a resistor-squiggle in the dust, "They just cut you up and use the parts in their next project."

This time when Nebula reached out she didn't grab his scruff, but gently stroked his fur. It didn't keep his fangs from coming out as he savagely erased the dust diagram. "But sometimes their little toy gets loose and kills 'em all, like I did. Or gets away, like you. And then you gotta live your life, and that means takin' care of yourself and even maybe making some friends. We're both monsters. We just hafta be the best monsters we can be, okay? Specially if you wanna kill Thanos. That ain't gonna be easy.:"

"So you know a guy."

"Yeah. Real cybernetics expert. One a the team that made me and the guy I saw when the crew made me have my back worked on. Best stupid idea they ever had. I never realized how much it all hurt until he fixed me up. I'll take you ta meet him but you gotta promise not to be jumpy. This guy's a friend and I don't have so many a those."

"I thought you said you killed them all."

"'Cept him. Only good one a the bunch. Weren't for him I wouldn't be here. So you be nice to him, okay?"

"Okay." Nebula stood, stretched, and swiveled her arm again as she tested the repairs. "All this after I shot you?"

"Prob'ly saved my life when you did that, lady. Just took me a while to realize it. And again later. Weren't for you I'd a been floating frozen in space like, like happened to Yondu." For the first time there was a catch in Rocket's voice. "But he died doin' good. I woulda just been dead for nothin'." He paused. “Can't just die for nothin' any more. Groot needs me.”

"All right, I'll be in touch." Nebula took a last look around, still not spotting the other two Guardians lurking in the shadows, and headed down the hanger toward her ship. When she was out of sight Gamora and Drax finally came out of hiding.

"That was surprisingly diplomatic of you," Drax said.

Rocket shrugged. "Monsters gotta stick together."

"You're not a monster, Rocket," said Gamora. "Maybe you were once, but not any more."

"Oh, I'm a monster," the raccoon said with a grin. "But I'm _your_ monster." He slipped the last of his tools back into their pouches and rose to his feet. "I need a drink. Drax, you still got that bottle a blue stuff?"

"Indeed," Drax rumbled.

"So Rocket," Gamora said a few minutes later as Drax poured glowing blue liqueur into shot glasses, "How many bombs did you plant in my sister's cybernetics just now?"

"You wound me," said the little raccoon with a grin. "Told her the truth. Didn't put one bomb in there."

"What about kill switches, cybernetics disruptors, trackers, remote control access points?"

"Well," said the raccoon after slugging back a shot, "Maybe just a few."


	5. First, Do No Harm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching Rocket and Lylla perform a minor operation on Gamora reminds Peter of the time found Rocket operating on _himself._
> 
> Blood, angst, but ultimately a good end. This story takes place after Sanctuary.

"Get that nerve, Rocket," Lylla said distractedly. Then, "Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I wasn't thinking."

Not so long ago Rocket's ears would have gone back, either at the implication that he'd made a technical error or because, Peter knew, the phrase "Get that nerve" brought back horrible memories of his early life. But their tough little raccoon teammate had healed a lot since he met them, and especially after meeting Lylla a year ago.

"I'll get your nerve," he said with a wicked grin. 

Lylla chuckled. "Later, honey." Through the banter Rocket's clever little hands were working. Lylla waited a moment as he added another white disc - nerve blocks to deaden pain - to the ones stuck to Gamora's shoulder. He studied a hovering screen. "Got it."

"I don't know why you have to be awake for this," Peter said. The green-skinned assassin smiled. She was face down on one of the common area bunks, naked from the waist up, and Lylla had the skin peeled back from a wound on her shoulder. Gamora's cybernetics were expensive and reliable but that didn't mean they were indestructible. She'd been blown through a wall on the Guardian's latest mission and even her augmented body had its limits. 

"Because they're very good at it," she said. Three hovering screens in front of her face had different views of the operation. The otter had the muscles in her shoulder clamped apart to expose the sinews around the bone. Nanomotive tubes drew away blood from capillaries too small for the otter to clamp off. The blood went into a cycler that sent it right back into Gamora's wrist. Only perhaps an ounce of blood would be lost in the entire course of the procedure. "It's educational."

"Right," Peter said. He felt compelled as always to be there when someone from the crew was hurt. Rocket had taught his mate basic cybernetics repair and this was more training for the otter. Lylla's hands weren't as clever as Rocket's but she was a fast learner.

"There it is," she purred. She'd exposed a series of flexible tubes, linear armature motors connected to Gamora's shoulder joint. Like the ones in her body and Rocket's they ran through every limb and to every joint, greatly increasing their strength. 

Two of them were torn almost through, remarkable given they were far stronger than steel. Gamora was very strong and very tough and she put a lot of strain on her cybernetics. It wasn't the first time she'd managed to damage them.

"Type two motor," Lylla purred. Rocket already had one in his hand.

The operation was minor and went smoothly. Peter remembered another, not so long ago, that had been more traumatic. At least for him.

*****

It was only a few days after what they called the Xandar Incident now. Ronan was dead, the Guardians had pardons for their various crimes and life was good. Groot - still the same Groot or a child, a sapling? - they weren't sure yet - was growing steadily in his pot. Drax and Gamora were beating each other up during one of their many training sessions in the common area at the back of the Milano. Even from his cabin Peter could hear the thuds as they threw each other around.

Peter yawned and scratched himself as he came out of his cabin. "Mornin' Rocket," he said as he passed the little raccoon. Peter froze in mid-step.

"God, what?" He'd seen the blood in passing and turned. Rocket was sat up in one of the walkway bunks/sofas, humorously undersized for his seat. Less humorous was the white sheet under the raccoon's thigh. Partly white. Mostly red now.

"Quill," the raccoon said without looking up. "Hand me that nerve block."

On the couch next to the raccoon was an open kit, one of several Rocket brought with him when he came on board. Peter had never seen the inside of this one and it contained a terrifying assortment of scalpels, clamps, retractors and higher-tech surgical gear. A little unit next to Rocket's leg hummed as its mobile tubes sucked up blood that leaked onto the white fabric. Peter watched as the blood made its way visibly up another tube and into a needle embedded in the raccoon's ankle.

"What's it look like?" Peter couldn't look away. Rocket had the fur and skin of his thigh drawn back with retractors and was knuckles deep in the bloody muscle underneath.

"It's a white -" the raccoon tensed, hissing in agony as he hit a nerve somewhere under that meat. His eyes glazed for a moment and the sound that rasped out of him was nothing like his normal voice.

"I. Said. Get That Nerve, Kin-Kaid.". Rocket shuddered and his eyes cleared. "Quill. White thing. Round."

"Right, right." There was a row of them stuck to the underside of the case lid. Peter popped two loose just in case.

"Kinda busy," Rocket said absently. Only his voice showed the pain. His hands were rock steady. "Stick it on the fur by my knee."

A moment later he relaxed. "Ah. Better. That was distracting." He leaned down over himself, his whiskers an inch from the bloody wound he'd made in himself. He was looking, listening and sniffing as his hands worked. All of Rocket's senses were amazing save for his sense of taste. He would eat anything you put in front of him, no matter how badly prepared or foul, and never complain. Though that might have less to do with sense of taste than growing up hungry.

"There we go," he growled. "Feel it now. Bad little servo..."

"Distracting," Peter muttered. He remembered the scars on Rocket's back, the ones the little raccoon hid under a shirt or armor save that one time in the Kyln. He saw the rough spots where more hid under Rocket's fur. He'd suspected his friend was in pain more or less all the time. He was sure now. No one unaccustomed to agony could be so calm when operating on himself.

"Rocket, who's Kinkaid?"

"Nerve tech," Rocket said without looking up. "Not good at his job. Dead now."

His eyes were glazed, staring vacantly at the wall as his exquisitely sensitive hands worked inside his leg. Peter had seen him like this before. Rocket's hands were so good that at times they seemed to need no input from his brain. Or maybe they took all of it.

"How did he die?" Peter couldn't help but press. He knew it was a bad idea. He did it anyway. Maybe he could learn something about his angry little friend.

"How did who die," Rocket said without changing expression. "Got it," he growled as bloody fingers slid free of his leg. "Hand me that number-four-knitter, Quill."

Rocket had several tools laid out on the mostly-red sheet and one had rolled out of reach. Peter looked at it as he handed it over. Like several of the others it was gleaming, polished alloy. Not like so many of Rocket's handmade, very functional but often ugly creations. This was precision made and certainly very expensive.

_Property of Halfworld Labs,_ it said on the handle. Peter saw the label on the other shiny ones as well.

He slapped the knitter into Rocket's little hand just as the raccoon opened his mouth to complain about the delay. Rocket set to poking it about in the exposed muscles. Several were visibly damaged. Peter was surprised Rocket managed to conceal the limp. He must have been hurt fighting Ronan but he never said a word.

"Need the number two in a minute," Rocket said, his eyes glazing over again. Peter took his chance as he reached for the tool, which helpfully had a "2" engraved on the base.

"Did Kinkaid work at Halfworld Labs?"

"Not any more," Rocket said absently. "Dead. All dead. All except one...Number Two Knitter."

Peter handed it over. "All except you?"

Rocket set to stitching shut his fur with the Number Two. Before he could answer Gamora walked in, a towel over her shoulder. She saw what was going on at once and before Peter could say a word she grabbed the white disk he had set down and stuck it onto Rocket's thigh next to another one.

"Don't need it," Rocket said as he finished sealing the self-inflicted wound. "Just 'bout done."

"How far in did you need to go," Gamora said. She shot Peter an angry look and he raised his hands, not sure what he'd done wrong.

"To the bone," Rocket said as he began to organize and stow the surgical tools. The red sheet was slowly turning white as some sort of capillary action fed the blood back through the tube into his ankle. "Bad servo."

"Rocket, that's dangerous," Gamora said. "If you'd nicked the femoral artery with a claw the cycler might not have kept you alive."

"I know where my femoral artery is," Rocket snapped. "I know where everything is. I can do it myself."

"You missed a nerve," Gamora said. Peter didn't say that Rocket had missed another earlier. He didn't need them both angry at him. "Look, Rocket, I'll make you a deal. You help me when I need work done and I'll help you when you do. I can use someone with hands as good as yours and I know cybernetics too. We can help each other."

"Eh," Rocket said as he snapped the case shut. The appeal to his ego helped, though, or maybe he wanted a look at Gamora's cybernetics. "Okay. I can live with that."

Peter almost mentioned the scars on the raccoon's back, reddened and inflamed around the implants. Later he would regret not doing so. Instead he said something else. "Why don't you just go to a doctor?"

Rocket and Gamora both looked at him. Neither said anything. "Oh c'mon, there's got to be one you trust."

"No," Gamora said. "There isn't." Rocket just laughed harshly.

"Fine, look, you go shower," he nodded to Gamora, sweaty from her workout, "And you need one too." Rocket shrugged, not one to bathe regularly. His crimson fur told the tale, though, and when Peter pointed at the bloody footprint he'd left on the deck he nodded. 

"I'll start breakfast," Peter went on. As the two turned away he couldn't resist one last question.

"Rocket, you said only one person came out of the lab alive. Who was it?"

Rocket blinked, pausing in mid-step. "Who told you that? Its bunk."

"Was it you?"

Rocket turned away, and his last words were harsh. "No one came out of that lab in one piece, Quill. No one."

Peter would look it up later. Halfworld Labs vanished in a blinding flash when its fusion reactor went critical - something that was statistically improbable at best, the dispassionate news articles agreed. Peter had a pretty good idea of how it happened.

Ten or more dead, the article said. But no names, no pictures. Classified Research. Not even a word on what went on in the lab. No survivors, it said.

But there was at least one. One little raccoon so scared of doctors that he cut himself open rather than let one touch him.

Peter shook his head as he started the stove and got out the makings of a crew lunch. He'd had a rough childhood after the Ravagers got him. Gamora's was even worse. But Rocket's was so bad he was surprised the raccoon functioned at all. He thought Rocket was improving. He hoped so. But to find him with a scalpel in his hand and his leg flayed open....

It wasn't the first horrible thing Peter learned about Rocket. It wouldn't be the last. Why did he do the things he did? Something horrible that was done to him in the past. It was always something horrible, with Rocket.

What do you do when you find your friend operating on himself? Hand him the tools and try to keep him from killing himself, while trying to understand what drove a person to such an extreme. And hope that one day he'd realize he didn't have to do it any more.

*****

Peter blinked, and realized the operation was over. Lylla was using Rocket's Number Two Knitter, which worked on skin whether it had fur or not. When she was done Gamora shifted her shoulder back and forth and nodded.

"It doesn't hurt at all now," she said with a smile. "Thanks, you two."

Lylla grinned brightly, and Rocket nuzzled her cheek. "Told you could do it. Next time someone gets a real wound you're on point."

The two of them methodically stowed the surgical tools, including all the ones Rocket had taken from the lab where he was made. Peter knew the whole story now, the whole awful truth. Rocket had killed his way out of that horrible place and named himself after the researcher that made him. Each letter of his name was taken from the name of a researcher who worked on him. He had come out of the place a bloody and nearly insane thing. Were it not for one kindly doctor he'd likely have become, as he put it, "A thing of pure hate." But he hadn't. Ever so slowly, in fits and starts, he left the hate behind.

Groot had started that recovery by not treating him like a pet or animal or monster. Then Peter and the other Guardians appeared. Slowly Rocket learned to trust them. Slowly he healed.

Then Yondu, whose death taught him that even if he was his cantankerous self, his friends would forgive him. Who taught him that it was all right to be loved.

And finally Lylla. She nipped him on the neck in her usual love bite spot and giggled. Peter reached out and took the tool kit.

"I'll put this with your stuff," he said. Rocket didn't even flinch. There was a time he'd snap at you for touching one of his tools, much less a prized possession like his surgical kit. 

"Thanks Pete," Rocket growled distractedly as Lylla nibbled his ear. And wasn't that an alien thought. Rocket actually saying 'Thank you.'

Lylla brought love into Rocket's life. Lylla brought him the one thing he never had: "Something like him." Lylla and the other Uplifts on Xandar and elsewhere. Rocket wasn't alone any more. He was the only raccoon - yes, you could call him that now - but Lylla was the only otter, among other singletons. There was only one Rocket but he was no longer alone.

Relieved of the tool kit, Lylla nipped Rocket again and was off like a shot on all fours. Rocket was right behind her. They would disappear somewhere, maybe into the walled-off cubbyhole under Rocket's tool bench, to celebrate. Two little Uplifts didn't need much room, especially two very friendly ones.

Mantis, who'd been hovering nearby to help calm Gamora if the assassin wished - which of course she hadn't - smiled. Drax, little interested in watching an operation, wandered in. Young Groot, a foot taller than Rocket and Lylla, smiled as well as the scrabble of claws disappeared into the distance.

"Sooo, what's next?" Star-Lord sprawled out on the couch. "What's Lylla got lined up for us?"

The little otter was purpose-built as a diplomat and had fallen easily into the role of manager, and sometimes spokesman for the team. She was also trained and equipped to be an assassin, which her creators thought synonymous with 'diplomat', but was far as she was concerned if she never bit another person with her venomous fangs it'd be too soon.

"Well," Gamora said, and flicked a screen up onto the wall. "There's a colony that wants us to sniff out a possible Skull infiltrator. The Colonizers of Rigel have a bounty out on a possible Uplift lab..." she held up her hand, "I know, Rocket and Lylla will want to look into that, especially as they are jointly the Uplift spokespeople. Then there's that situation further out the Orion Arm. Scattered reports of something that may or not be a Brood hive..."

Pete leaned back with a deep sense of satisfaction. The rogue, the assassin, the warrior, the empath, the tinkerer, the diplomat. And a four foot tall tree. All hurt, but all healed. All Guardians.


	6. The wire in my head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's always something horrible," Peter Quill is prone to mutter when he learns some new awful thing about Rocket's past. But some things are more horrible than others. Some just gradually become part of you until you're not sure where they stop and where you begin.

It was a weekly routine. Every week, on what Pete called Sunday or thereabouts if 'Sunday' was too busy, Rocket got out his tools and did a thorough scan of Lylla. He then handed them over and she returned the favor. Between the checkups on two Uplifts and Gamora, occasional visit from Nebula and checking over the translation implants they all had, they kept in practice. Rocket and Lylla didn't get to operate on cyborgs very often so this was the next best thing.

Every week started the same, a shallow scan and a deep scan followed by socketing a probe in the data port each had to the left of their spine. Lylla's cybernetics were a generation ahead of Rocket's and they got more useful data from her distributed data nodes, so it was their habit to spend extra time going over Rocket's scans for abnormalities. They were experts on each other's bodies and their own, even more than most couples.

Then one Sunday, as Star-Lord detoured around the apparent clutter of tools surrounding the two little Uplifts (the clutter was an illusion. Move a single tool a quarter of an inch and Rocket would snap at you), Rocket saw something on one of the screens.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Lylla, though engrossed in going over other scans, felt him tense. She didn't say anything, either. Nor did she look as Rocket expanded and rotated a view of his own brain.

Turning a raccoon or otter brain into a human-level intellect took some cheating. Each of them had numerous subprocessors implanted in their heads, purpose-built organic computers no larger than a peanut. When an Uplift went well - and theirs had each gone extraordinarily well in the final analysis - these worked together with the animal brain. You kept the excellent senses while adding intellect and, if desired, nearly superhuman additional attributes.

Rocket was an ace pilot and a crack shot. He was also a frighteningly adept intuitive mechanic. Were he not a Guardian and were he to receive the respect he received from the galaxy, he could make a very good living customizing weapons and equipment for anyone smart enough to hire him. Thus he was the one to spot the anomaly in his own brain scan. A line, a spot that had no obvious purpose. Flipping through scans from previous weeks he found it had always been there. The new scanner he'd picked up just made it more obvious. What was it? What did the spot and line (wire?) do?

Lylla, though now an adept mechanic in her own right, wasn't as quick to spot such things. He was built as a soldier and pilot who could build and fix his own gear. Her specialization was quite different. Lylla was a diplomat.

That meant, among other things, that you never, ever wanted to play cards with her if money was on the line. Her intuitive grasp of body language, vocal inflection and facial expressions made it impossible to bluff her. She'd know your cards almost before you did.

So that night, after they'd stripped down to the fur and crawled through the little porthole under Rocket's workbench into their padded sleeping space, Lylla wanted to talk.

"Don't try to distract me," she purred as his talented hands began to roam. He was very good at a lot of things and his clever little clawed hands were as adept at pleasing her as they were at snapping together bombs. "You're worried about something you saw on your scan."

Rocket sighed. "Can't blame a guy for trying." He curled up and she, longer bodied, curled around him. It was their usual position when they were in bed to sleep as opposed to being in bed to do other things. It put her whiskery muzzle behind his ear and he smiled as she tickled him.

"Now who's distracting who," he said as it was her turn to let her little webby hands wander. "Do you want to know or not?"

"When you want to tell me," she purred, and as her hands continued to roam his mind turned to anything but talking. An hour later, when the padded walls no longer echoed their chirps and growls, he finally spoke up.

"There's something in my head," he said, and touched his forehead. "A wire so fine I never saw it on a scan before. It connects to one of my subprocessors."

"A control?" The worry was that there was a kill switch or other trickery buried somewhere in their bodies. It was one of the drawbacks to being a cyborg and one of the reasons Rocket was so adamant about the checkups. Maybe they'd spot something on the twentieth scan they'd missed on all the others.

Rocket was silent until she nudged him. Only then did he speak up. "No. Nothing like that. I know what it is. I've suspected it was there for a long time."

As he explained she nodded. She had her reservations but Rocket had his reasons. Afterward they snuggled up together to sleep, and that was the end of it...for a few months.

Three months of adventure, bounty hunting, mercy runs of supplies and medicine to Xandarian colonies - paid mercy runs, naturally - later came a call from an old friend.

"Call for you, Rocket," Star-Lord said from the pilot's seat. "It's Doc Foster."

Rocket, in the co-pilot position, nodded. They were docked at a space station set up as a Xandarian outpost. They'd just finished taking on fuel and hypernet reception was good. He stabbed a claw at a control and a screen popped up with Paul Foster's face.

Lylla nudged Rocket the second she saw the doctor. Rocket already knew something was up from the badly concealed look of concern on Paul's face. Rocket had gotten markedly better at reading human expressions since meeting his mate.

"Rocket," Paul said. He considered the other Guardians for a moment until the raccoon spoke up.

"Pretty sure I know why you're calling, doc," he said. "If it's something you saw on those scans I sent you a while back. Lylla and I already know. No reason the rest of this gang of idiots shouldn't." He gestured amiably at the rest of the crew.

Paul still looked uneasy. "Are you sure, Rocket? I swear I didn't know, and I was the backup cyberneticist. It must have been something Tschu put in without documenting it."

"Yeah." Rocket hovered a claw over a control. "I'm switching this to the common room. We'll be there in a minute." His claw descended. "OK. You guys deserve to know this. C'mon."

A couple of minutes later, after Gamora and Drax unstowed the table that normally sat folded next to Rocket's work bench, they all took seats. The faint smell of animal musk filled the room from the curtained-off nook under the bench that led to the Uplift's little sleep spot. The smell had long since ceased to bother anyone. The whole ship smelled of their two furry crew mates, just as it smelled of human and alien, but it was stronger here.

"Okay Paul," Rocket said, and leaned back as he looked at the screen. He put a clawed finger up against his skull. "Wire."

"That's right." Paul looked down for a moment. Though he was a good friend to the raccoon now, his role in Rocket's creation still wracked him with guilt. "A wire into your pleasure center."

"Pleasure center," Pete said. "What, to control you?"

Rocket leaned back further in his chair. The others didn't miss how Lylla's hand stayed on his forearm. Relaxed as the raccoon seemed, he was tense. "This is what happened. You know the guys that made me weren't the best crew around."

"That is why they are dead," Drax said with a typical lack of tact.

"Yeah. Now, I don't remember much from when I was little. Sometimes I can kind of remember my mom, just warm fur and safety...most of what I do know I read in their notes. I was the youngest of a litter of four. The other three were bigger and stronger and they took them away one by one to try to do with them what they ended up doin' to me. All those cubs died. Then they came for me." He paused.

"My mom was just an animal. But she was a mother. She knew that they they took her cubs away they didn't come back. They had to kill her to get to me. They cut her up for parts."

He looked up. A year ago his eyes would be bright with tears. A year before that, hard with hate. Rocket was stronger now. He'd grown. "That's neither here nor there. Anyway, the first thing I remember for sure was hate. How much I hated them. So when they started makin' me do things, put together weapons an' such, I played dumb even when they tortured me. I didn't start to cooperate until I heard 'em saying they were gonna cut me up to see why the Uplift failed. And then it was just to stall so I had time to escape." 

"An' it wasn't until I got out, after killing every one of 'em 'cept Doc Foster here, that I started to work on stuff. Tools. Weapons. Flyin'. Shootin'. And you know what I found?"

Absently, seemingly without input from his brain, his little clawed hands disassembled his data pad to the components, then snapped it back together again. He didn't need to look. His hands knew what to do.

"I found I liked workin' on stuff. And fighting, and flyin'. Before I met Groot," he looked fondly at the adolescent tree. "That and drinkin' was all I had. All that kept me together. So I did it a lot. When I met Groot I was five, I guess."

He smiled at the startled expressions. "Raccoons mature fast. Good thing they made me so I live longer than one. Anyway, I was out of the lab for maybe three years when I met Groot and about all I did to make ends meet was fight an' make stuff. I liked doing it an' I was good at it. It made me Units. So why worry why I liked it so much?"

"Couple years later I met Pete and the rest a you losers," he said, waving at Mantis, Drax and Gamora. "An' after that I got better. Yeah, I know I was a mess. You guys helped me a lot. But pretty soon, I noticed something. I'd be workin' on something and just ignoring you. Even though you an' Groot were the best thing that ever happened to me."

He leaned his head to the side so his cheek pressed against Lylla's. "And then the real best thing to ever happen to me happened. And sometimes I ignored even her. That's when I knew."

"You knew there was a control of some sort," Doc Foster said from the screen.

"Yup. Workin' on stuff was more than a habit. It was...I dunno, an addiction. An' I thought, 'If I was gonna train an animal to do something (not that I would) I'd make it feel good to do it. So they'd get hooked and keep doing it.' I started looking for what was going on. There had to be something in my head. And then a few months ago I bought a better scanner, and there it was. I saw it first checkup I did."

"That's horrible," Star-Lord said. "It makes you work and fight?"

"Sorta," Rocket admitted. "It just made it feel good. But I grew up like this. My whole life has been like this. I work, I fight, I fly, I feel good. For a long time it was all I had. All that kept me alive and sane. I got used to it. An' the worse things got, the more I craved it. An' when I didn't get it, after a while it almost hurt."  
He fiddled with the data pad. "And we can't get it out, can we doc?"

"No," Paul Foster said on the screen. "Not safely. Your brain grew around it as you matured. And we can't shut down that processor node because we don't know what else it does. If we mess with that there's no telling what it would do to you."

"Sooo..." Rocket reached over and stroked Lylla's nape, but he was looking at the other Guardians. "This is who I am. You put up with me, so it can't be too awful. I just want ta say, and don't expect me to say this every time..."

"If you see me workin' and I don't hear you when you talk. If I'm doing somethin' and ignoring you. I'm sorry. I just like to work. Most of it's real. Most of it's me. A little bit of it isn't. Its just the way I am."

Pete could count on the fingers of one hand the times he'd heard the raccoon say 'I'm sorry.' One of them was the time Rocket bit him. He didn't say it unless he meant it.

"I'm sorry, Rocket," Paul said from the screen. "I didn't know. I would have told you if I did. I called as soon as I figured it out."

"It's not all bad, doc." Rocket leaned over and nuzzled Lylla. "Its just something I hafta keep track of. I have things better than that little wire now. An' there are worse things to be addicted to than work."

And that was the heart of it. Rocket knew about it now. He knew what to look for and how to deal with it. And of all the horrible things they'd learned about him, this was perhaps the least bad. 

Pete smiled. "And the next time you do something stupid, or lose your temper, you have a ready-made excuse."

"Well," Rocket said, and smiled at Lylla,"There's that too."


End file.
